Take My Advice

by Robin Palmer

  “Hmm . . . I like that,” she said.

  I turned to Laurel, who nodded in agreement. “Really impressive. I know the advice thing is your hobby now, but I think you should consider taking an improv class. I bet you’d be great at it.”

  I smiled. “Thanks, you guys.”

  Mom nodded. “I really like this idea,” she said. “I think what I’ll do is book a room at 60 Thompson down in Soho, and get us tickets to a Broadway play—maybe even a musical because Alan likes those so much, even though I find them hard to sit through—and we’ll have brunch at Locanda Verde in Tribeca and—” She smothered me in a hug. “Oh, Lucy, what great advice! Thank you so much!”

  “You mean Annie,” I said into her chest.

  “Annie, Lucy, whoever you are—you’re brilliant!”

  Maybe I really was good at this. I mean, having to come up with something on the spot was a little scary, but it wasn’t that bad. In fact, if I ended up doing it enough, it might feel so normal that one day I, too, could have a show like Dr. Maude! Or at least fill in for her as a guest host while she went on vacation.

  Not to mention that when Alan and Mom were hanging out in their hotel room (after having Done It—eww!), and Alan said, “Rebecca, this is such a wonderful surprise, and I appreciate it so much. How did you ever come up with such a great idea?” Mom would say, “Actually, I ended up asking Lucy for advice, and she was the one who came up with it.”

  Which would make Alan realize that not only did I have a hobby, but that Laurel wasn’t the only kid in the family with talent.

  Dear Dr. Maude,

  Remember when I told you that it seems like I might be kind of good at this advice-giving thing? Well, it turns out that I’m REALLY good at it! Not only am I—I mean, Annie—getting more and more letters from the kids at school, but the other day I was able to help Mom solve her problem about where she and Alan should go for their weekend away (BTW, have you ever thought about the idea of talking about karma on your show? Not to tell you how to do your job or anything, but when dealing with my clients, I find that when you bring karma up, they get all worried that if they don’t follow your advice, it’s going to screw up the rest of their lifetimes).

  But as busy as I am helping people solve their problems, and as much as I try not to think about my own problem, it’s still there. Not only that, but with every day it’s just getting bigger and bigger. And I’m not talking about my boobs, or the fact that I now have so many boxes of unopened maxipads in my closet that when I opened the door the other day they toppled over and fell out. I’m talking about the thing that I need advice about that I now feel bad asking you for advice about because we’re now rivals. You know, the B.L.M (Blair Lerner-Moskovitz) thing.

  Which brings me to you. Sure, I could have written to Sara, from that “Sara Says . . .” column in Fifteen magazine. Or Alisa from “Advice from Alisa” in Teens Today.

  Actually, I DID write to them. But what I got back from both of them was an e-mail saying, “Due to the heavy volume of letters received, please be advised that your letter may not be answered.” Which is why I thought I’d give you another try.

  See, the Sadie Hawkins dance is only ten days away. Actually, it’s nine days, seven hours, and forty-three minutes away. Which, when you don’t have the guts to ask anyone—let alone your local crush—because you’d either have to die or at least throw up if they said no, isn’t a lot of time.

  Although I will say that I just saw on the A&E website that they’re having a Hoarders marathon that night, and I really don’t want to miss it. Sure, I could TiVo it, but because I’m so busy with all my advice giving, it’s hard to find time to watch TiVo’d shows.

  I know you haven’t answered any of my other e-mails, but if you could just answer this one and let me know, I’d really appreciate it.

  Thanks.

  yours truly,

  Lucy B. Parker

  * * *

  While I waited for Dr. Maude to write me back (I figured it had to happen at some point), I decided to see if Skyping with Ziggy when it wasn’t nap time would net me some advice.

  “Hey Zig, que pasa?” I yelled into the computer. “That means ‘what’s up’ in Spanish.” Pete, who was Puerto Rican, said it to me all the time. Back when Sarah was pregnant I had gotten annoyed at how Dad was all into making sure Ziggy turned out super-genius-y. But now that it was obvious he was so smart, I figured I’d do my part to teach him what I could. “Can you say ‘que pasa’?”

  He put his little lips together and made a raspberry sound.

  “Okay. We’ll work on that some other time,” I said. “So Ziggy—I need some more advice.”

  He laughed.

  “Hey, it’s not my fault I have one of those lives where there’s a lot going on. So about that dance I told you about last time—”

  He gave a little sigh.

  “Yeah. That again,” I sighed back. “Believe me, I’m sick of it, too. Anyway, the thing is, I’m running out of time. I know I still haven’t told Beatrice or anything, but once I do, then I still have to ask Blair.”

  Ziggy covered his eyes.

  “I know! That’s how I feel about it, too!” I exclaimed. It was probably because we were related, but it was kind of crazy how Ziggy and I tended to think exactly the same way. “So do you have any advice about how to do it? Not like I’m definitely going to, but if I did?”

  At first Ziggy was so quiet I wondered if he had fallen asleep again. Which is why I leaned in close to the computer and yelled “ZIGGY? ARE YOU SLEEPING?” But I could see from the way his eyes were open and he kept trying to stick his fingers in his nose that he was awake.

  I sighed. “Can you just give me something, Ziggy?”

  And then he did. Because right then he screwed his eyes up tight, and I heard something that sounded like a shaken-up soda can exploding after being opened.

  I cringed as I picked up my phone to text Dad that it seemed that someone needed his diaper changed. And fast.

  I had hoped it wouldn’t get to this point, but I realized I had no choice. I still needed advice.

  It was time to set up another Skype session.

  This time, a Triple-S one.

  Connor Forrester was the one who came up with the actual idea for the Skype Snack Session, aka Triple S. Before I had met him I never would’ve thought that we could’ve been friends. He was really cute . . . and a big star . . . and really cute . . . and a big star. But we got along really well, and he made me laugh a lot. Plus, he was the first (and only) boy I had ever kissed. And even though I didn’t like him like-him, we were friends.

  You’d think that someone who was as big of a star as Connor would be all stuck-up and full of himself and think that everything he had to say was super-important, like on the level of Dr. Maude, but that wasn’t the case. In fact, the more I got to know him, the more I discovered that—like Laurel—he could be just as nervous and unsure of himself as unfamous people.

  After I got back to New York, we got into this thing where once a week we would Skype while eating a snack at the same time (that’s where the name came from). Because we could see each other on the computer, it was almost like hanging out in person, but the good news was (a) we didn’t have to worry about the paparazzi taking pictures of us, and (b) I didn’t have to worry about whether my breath smelled from Doritos.

  Connor was shooting his new movie, Monkeyin’ Around, in Mexico (his last seven movies had starred chimps or apes or orangutans), so his schedule had been a little crazy lately, but when I texted him: Need an emergency Triple S NOW!!!, he immediately texted me back: Give me 5 min—need to wash monkey slobber off.

  “So what’s going on, dudette?” he asked a few minutes later as we snacked away. I tried not to have snack envy, but it was hard. While I crunched away on a bag of boring old pita chips, I could see that he had a whole spread of fun foods such as trail mix, Nutter Butter cookies, and chocolate-covered raisins. Squinting, I saw that there even seemed t
o be some gummi worms there. Obviously, he had hit the craft services truck before going to his trailer.

  Craft services was this place they had on TV and movie sets that was full of tons of different foods that you could take as much of as you wanted for free. Which, because movie stars made so much money, seemed a little unfair.

  “Well, I kind of need your advice about something,” I began.

  “A big-time advice columnist like you needs my advice?!” he exclaimed. When I had e-mailed Connor about my column, he was really impressed. “Dude, that is so cool!”

  I rolled my eyes. “Connor—”

  “Sorry—I mean dudette.” Even though he definitely knew I was a girl on account of the kiss thing, he always called me “dude.” “It’s just that I can’t believe you’re coming to me for advice!”

  “Yeah. Okay, so, um, see, there’s this. . . . ah—” I sput-tered. Uh-oh. This was going to be tough. In fact, as I felt the sweat begin to bead on my forehead, I moved back from the webcam.

  And I realized it was going to be even harder when Connor picked up the guitar that was next to him on the couch in his trailer and started to strum it while I tried not to cringe. During one of our Triple S’s, he had admitted to me that one of his dreams was to start a singing career, like Laurel’s. What I wanted to say—but didn’t, on account of the fact that it would’ve been mean—was that, unlike Laurel, he didn’t actually have any singing talent. In fact, if he had been just a regular kid, and had Ms. Edut for chorus, she would’ve told him to mouth the lyrics, too.

  “There’s this what?” he asked.

  I mopped my forehead with my sleeve. “Hold on a second—I’m trying to get my thoughts together!” I cried.

  He shrugged. “Okay, then while you get your thoughts together, let me play you this new song I just wrote. It’s called Pizza Guy Blues—”

  “Uh, no, that’s okay, they’re together now,” I said quickly. In our last Triple S, he insisted on playing a song called “Why Be Sad When You Have Wii”? and it was so bad, I had to mute the volume on my computer until he was done. “Okay . . . well, it’s kind of a long story, so I won’t get into all of it right now, but the bottom line is this—” I took a deep breath and screwed my eyes shut tight. “I’mthinkingofaskingaboytoadance,” I blurted out.

  “Huh?”

  “I said . . . I’mthinkingofaskingaboytoadance.”

  He leaned in so close to the webcam that all I could see were the insides of his nostrils. Luckily, there wasn’t anything gross in there. “You’re saying it too fast!” he yelled very loudly and slowly, like the way my grandmother talked to people who didn’t speak English.

  I rolled my eyes. Laurel and Beatrice didn’t have any problem understanding me when I did that. I guess that’s why they were my BFFs and Connor was just a boy. “I said . . . I’m. Thinking. Of. Asking. A. Boy. To. A. Dance.” I braced myself for the lightning that I was sure was about to strike me, but nothing happened, other than Miss Piggy making the gagging noise she made right before she upchucked a hairball. Which I would clean up later, if I was still alive because I didn’t die from embarrassment first.

  “Not that I’m really interested in doing something like that,” I added. “But it’s in nine days, and it’s a Sadie Hawkins dance, where the girls have to ask the boys, and because I’m class president I really should be there. So, you know, it looks like I’m taking my job seriously. I mean, I don’t want to get impeached or anything like that. That would look really bad on my school record.”

  He turned red. “Wow, Lucy, that’s really cool that you asked me . . . but I’m not going to be able to make it,” he said nervously. “That’s the same night that I’m hosting the ‘Primates in Film’ Awards.”

  Oh my God. Connor Forrester thought I was asking him OUT. To a DANCE. Which was like a DATE. This was beyond humiliating. Now it wasn’t just my face or the backs of my knees that were sweating—my back had joined the party, too. “Actually, I wasn’t—” I started to say.

  “And, uh, there’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you,” he said. He took a deep breath. “And I guess now is as good of a time as any. You see, I’ve kind of been . . . hanging out with someone here.”

  My face paled. Oh great. Connor thought I liked-liked him! Which I SO did not. This was even more embarrassing than having to ask him for advice. “That’s great,” I said. “But that’s not why I wanted to talk to you—”

  “You’re a really awesome girl, Lucy. Like totally, seriously, beyond awesome,” he said. “I mean, you eat bread, for crying out loud, which is something barely anyone here in L.A.—guys or girls—do. And if we lived in the same city, I’d totally be into hanging out in, you know, that way, but with the distance and all—”

  I got really close to the camera and microphone on the computer so that he wouldn’t miss what I was about to say. I didn’t even care if he could see up my nostrils. “Connor, I wasn’t calling to ask you to the dance!” I yelled. “I was calling you for advice about how to ask a different boy!”

  I pulled back to see him shielding himself with a pillow. “Whoa—take it down a few notches, Parker,” he said. “I think you just blew my eardrum out.”

  “Sorry,” I replied.

  “So you weren’t going to ask me to that Sally Hansen dance?” he asked, relieved.

  “It’s Sadie Hawkins,” I corrected. Boy, that was a dumb name. Maybe that’s why she had been forced to ask a boy—because of her name. I shook my head. “And, no, I wasn’t.”

  He grinned. “Phew. What a relief.” Then he looked confused. “Wait a minute—you weren’t?” he asked, looking kind of hurt.

  “No! And first of all, like I said, I’m only thinking of asking someone,” I corrected. “I didn’t say I was going to ask him for sure.”

  “Oh. What’s the second of all?”

  “Huh?”

  “You said ‘first of all,’ and usually when people say that, there’s a second of all that comes after it.”

  I thought about it. “I’m not exactly sure what the second of all is, but I know there is one,” I replied. “But that part doesn’t matter. What matters is, if I did end up asking someone—not that I’m going to, but if I did—how would I do it?”

  “Who would you ask if you did ask someone?”

  “B.L.M,” I whispered.

  He got all close to the webcam again. “Who?!” he yelled.

  I covered my ears. “If I asked someone it would be . . .” I took a deep breath. No use whispering it or else we’d be here all day. “Blair Lerner-Moskovitz!” I yelled.

  “Wait a minute—are you talking about the guy in the Chess Club?”

  I nodded.

  “You’re going to ask a dude who’s in the Chess Club instead of me?” he asked, sounding all hurt.

  I rolled my eyes. Once when I was overlistening, I heard Mom say to Deanna that all boys—no matter if they were seven or seventy-two—were total babies. At the time I wasn’t sure what that meant, and it wasn’t like I could ask on account of the fact that I was supposed to be sleeping because it was close to midnight and I had school the next day. But now I realized what she was talking about. “Like I said, it’s kind of a long story, so I won’t go into all of it right now so just tell me how I would do it if I did it, okay?”

  “Oh, that’s easy,” he said, kicking back and starting to strum his guitar again, very off-key. “You just go up to him and—”

  “Wait! Wait!” I said, running to my bag to get my advice notebook and my purple pen. This might come in really handy if I ever received an advice question about how to ask a boy to a dance. “Okay, now I’m ready,” I announced when I got back. “So I just go up to him and what?”

  He stopped strumming and leaned in closer to the camera. “You really want to go with him instead of me? Really?” he asked, amazed.

  I rolled my eyes again. “Connor. Can you just tell me?!” I asked.

  “Okay, okay. So you just go up to him and you . . .”
He stopped. “Chess Club? Dude, really?”

  “Connor!” I was gripping the pen so hard by this point I was afraid I was going to snap it in two.

  “Sorry. Okay. Anyway, so you just go up to him and you say, ‘Hey Blair, so there’s this dance thing at my school. You want to go?’”

  I unclenched the pen. “That’s it?”

  He nodded.

  “But . . . that’s so . . . simple,” I said.

  He smiled. “Well, yeah. And then he’ll either say, ‘Sure, I’d love to’ or he’ll say ‘Uh, that sounds cool but I can’t because . . .’ and he’ll come up with some really lame excuse. And because you’ll know he’s lying because you girls have some sort of lie detector implanted in your skulls when you’re born, you’ll get all upset and go somewhere and cry for a while and then you’ll just ask someone else. Like maybe someone who’s in the . . . astronomy club.”

  “Are you sure it’s that easy?” I demanded.

  He nodded.

  I sighed. Then why did it all seem so hard?

  At least I wasn’t the only chicken when it came to the dance. Judging from the number of letters Annie was getting, there were tons of us.

  Later that afternoon I sat on the couch in the lobby with my laptop sorting through Annie’s letters. Ever since Pete had just happened to mention that Dr. Maude was back in town after her countrywide book tour for her latest book Everyone’s Sick of Listening to You Whine—So JUST STOP IT! I just happened to be hanging out in the lobby whenever I wasn’t at school or asleep. Some people might have considered that stalking, but my feeling was that stalking was more like pressing the person’s floor number in the elevator at least five times a day so that when the doors opened, maybe you’d get a glimpse of them in the hallway. (And since I did that only three times a day, it wasn’t stalking.) (Well, four a day on weekends.) (Fine, so one Sunday I did it five times. But it was just that one Sunday.)